He did promise to to not follow in the footsteps of the established teams. Clearly he's made good on that one.

I know we've all talked a lot about USF1's YouTube clips of their progress so far.

By way of comparison, here is the Lotus YouTube clip of their birth.

USF1 has some way to go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idtAvNkaMBQ

(Thanks to Xaus who posted in the Lotus thread)

You are fast, I already updated my post.. lol


Honestly I am not sure where that number goes, it could be the business manager for all I really know. But it is normal for it to be patched through a receptionist unless this number is actually a backline and skips the front desk.

Edit: If the rumors are true, then I am not hounding her with the two calls that I have placed that only last a few minutes. I am giving her something to do other than look at job postings online before she quits!!

http://www.jigsaw.com/id2226833/usf1_company.xhtml

I am off to lunch, have fun and look forward to seeing what everyone comes up while I am gone.. LOL Wife's birthday, she is a huge MS fan so she thinks I am nuts for following USF1 (which I will admit I am a Ferrari fan, have been since a child). I did go see Andretti race in Germany in 93/94? I think in that race he actually went for a few laps.

Of course having more funds is always nice but IMHO that's not the problem... the problem lies with the grossly improper use of funds and the horrible management as described by CompositeKen (pretty sure he's legit now)

How can money be the real problem when Hurley is now looking at opening his purse again, but this time for another team?

This indicates that money is possibly available, but only to people who can deliver... that sure as hell didn't become true today either.. this probably was true when Windsor said all was fine. (hell he still almost says that!)

So in summary the situation is (?)

- Chad Hurley jumps ship and goes to Campos (to be announced by Campos)
- Pechito Lopez and his manager approached Windsor for an update and he with *tears in his eyes* confessed that the project is in trouble and perhaps wont make 2010 season

I was one of them. For me the reason was the scheduled crash test, but the 15th came and went with no news of the test. So for me that pretty much killed any hopes of seeing an American built car in Formula one this season.

Today i really feel sorry for Scott Bennett hebelieved he had fulfilled his dream to be in F1

Yep! Unlike USF1 it seems, who had to make with 1 wing, and a prayer.

If this fails it is incredibly embarrassing for the Argentinian government, which they won't like one little bit.

One wing, and a drumstick.

Scandal it would be I would think, and horrible for the investors at USF1. All the more reason for Hurley to get something done, last thing he wants or needs is bad press with something he is involved in.

Riddle this - Yesterday it was Hurley chasing after a merger for CampUSF1, today he is after Campos?

If Hurley wanted to get involved in F1 so bad you think he'd choose a more obvious team to be associated with.

Like Sauber.

I don't see how Windsor can stay in journalism either, his credibility lies in absolute shreds and he has been exposed as a liar and a lot of journalism should be about trust and Windsor has made fools out of Bob Varsha, out of Racecar Engineering, out of the Argentine government and lied to F1 fans by making promises he couldn't deliver and trying to insult everyone's intelligence by pretending everything was rosy

Readers of any magazine that employs him in future will be unable to take him seriously

The bright side is Hurley can write the loss off his 2010 taxes...anyone know how much he has invested?

$45 million USD?

I feel sorry for Peter/Ken and everyone else who was involved in this project. Why, you asked, and the asnwer is simple. I am 100 percent possitive that their intentions were good, I give him credit just like Campos for trying to pull this huge effort together just because of their passion for motorsports. What else has Peter done that doesn't involve formula 1?.. I think this is all this guy cares for or is interested in. As a journalist he is crap, i'll admit it but I think he saw a small window of opportunity to fulfill a dream and went for it.
I think that all the things that he talked about could have been made possible, it is not irrational to think they couldn't have been.

peter did not have any experience with managing a racing team but he got together with some people who did.

I think he'll be fine to continue his broadcasting career.

He'll fall on his sword, say that he gave the project his all and it proved impossible to get the project off the ground.

"Would you like fries with that?"

"Yes Thanks Peter, good to see you back in gainful employment"

Another thing thats wierd is until about 2 weeks ago it appeared as though he had no idea or no interest as to how his money was being spent.

Someone asked him on his twitter what was going on with USF1, and he replied that he wasnt sure but it was "crunch time" for ken and company.

You would think that if he was so interested in getting into F1 he would be overseeing what the hell was happening with the team from day 1 or at least asking for regular updates. Instead it seems as though he has only just realised how deep USF1 was in the shit a couple of days ago.


Ken Anderson must have been spending a lot of time at starbucks lately. According to CK he buggers off their whenever the heat is on.

For Autosport subscribers:

http://www.autosport.com/features/article.php/id/2636



My first post apparently was an infringement on subscriber conditions. Sorry about that (to Autosport)

Very good article though and it puts some different views on both the PW and KA situation at USF1, as well as Chad Hurley's involvement with the team and conflicting information as to his future involvement with the team.

thanks for that article DFV..

It's basically a rewrite of what was posted on motorsport-total..

I loved the detail about Steiner opereating a particular kind of shop in Charlotte.. lol

It looks like he could be... I... I wont say it!

It's looking rather grim now, isn't it? The silence is telling.

While I think it's becoming clearer by the day why some of us had so little faith in USF1, if it does all fall apart, I don't take any pleasure in their failing. Quite the opposite. I feel sorry for all the people who had their hopes and dreams attached to the project; Pechito (after this fiasco, I'd like to see him get a drive as part of any potential deal with Campos or Stefan), the engineers and shop personnel who did their best to build a racing car in time, the small contractors who saw a chance for international exposure, the investors who bought into the idea of an American team...and even for Windsor and Anderson. Yes, that pair seemingly made a mess of it, and there's no real excuse for that, but I'm sure they didn't want things to end like this. Failure is sad, even incompetent failure.

The best outcome right now would seem like a deal of some sort between Hurley and the Campos folks, with a slot then opened up for Stefan. Between the three projects, there might even be enough positions left to be filled that much of the current staff would still find a place, even if in a somewhat different capacity or with a different team arrangement than anticipated. Not sure anything like that could happen though, is Hurley even interested enough to bother seeing out his experiment in financing an F1 team?

USF1...the work of skunks alright...
Thanks again Peter

Serbia's version of Tony Buckingham. Zoran Stefanovic is wheeler dealer/fixer in "gun for hire" mercenaries and blood diamonds. But not as depraved as Tony Teixeira, who flogged his daughter to a Congo warlord, for concessionary mining rights. Just google Tony Teixeira and blood diamonds.




Deloitte & Touche. Honesty in accounting? Believe me when I say accounting at the top end of business, is as bent and corrupt as those credit rating agencies that gave Triple A ratings, to anything the leading investment banks asked them to Triple A rate, or lose business. PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG are as crooked and bent as they come. Deloitte was probably given a lame remit to check their viability, because it was in the political interest of the FIA to chose the outfits it wanted, so Deloitte in all likelihood gave them a good write up, took the money and said "pleasure doing business". All the big frauds from ENRON to Bernard Madoff, could only happen with the acknowledgement of the auditors. Likewise with bribery scandals for example, energy and defense contracts ie; BAE Saudi £1 billion bribe case Hiding £1 billion off the books over a couple of decades, can only be done in conjunction with the auditors.

more detail:

Campos and U.S. F1: Meeting in London

You're right, it's an excellent read, written by someone who actually bothers to get in touch with the teams.

Others clearly don't.

I'm looking at your Joe Saward.

While I'm unable to go as for as you on these things... at the end of the day the FIA could have done whatever the hell they wanted with the reports I guess... that stuff must be confidential whatever it says.

I really hope that solution works out, particularly for Bruno and Pechito.

Though i would have really like t see what the USF1 Type 1 was like.

wow, if what you said here is true I am a bit shocked to sense a general level of enthusiasm towards this dude's prospecs in F1 in this forum with contrast to USF1.

The Argentine involvement was what made me think that maybe it was going to work out. That they wouldn't have involved themselves unless they were fairly certain and that Peter Windsor wouldn't have involved them (especially Carlos Reutemann) unless he were fairly certain that it was a good idea.

I do feel sorry for everyone involved. This has been an unusually entertaining silly season but also one with an unusual amount of disappointment.

I guess their only hope is to merge with Campos... or have an eccentric U.S. based billionaire swoop in and save the team.

even an eccentric US based billionaire can't build a F1 car in 20 days... or, more precisely; can't make Anderson and son build a F1 car in 20 days.

... That says it all

Yeah, but then again this is an /eccentric/ billionaire. He already has 6 F1 2010 spec cars just waiting to go.

The Autosport article today mentions a major sponsorship deal that went pear shaped in December.

jeez how many accountants do we have around here lol...

In theory USF1 was supposed to have the funding... you certainly won't find me bending over backward to defend the FIA selection process, but again it looks like Hurley is still ready to toss cash around, just no longer towards Windsor and Anderson.

Funding wasn't so much an issue as to what was done with it..

6?

He just said that car #2 should be ready this week

See my post above yours. Major sponsorship deal apparently went pear shaped in December (according to Dieter Rencken).

Others might call that a slight bump in the road

No worries, Peter Windbag found a replacement.

that is just your interpretation. I think what the usf1 presented to the fia was a marketing plan to go out and get sponsors from the US. There is nothing to indicate that they had all the funds from day one - is actually the opposite.

Anyway, there was already plenty of 'reports' about USF1 being late already in December... the alarm bells were ringing for plenty of us, while you guys were still buying the Windsor blabbering and/or interpreting the silence as being 'good news'.

You can't rule out sponsors throwing the towel because the team wasn't going to make it..

BTW what do you think about Hurley sending his mate and Gunther Steiner* to negotiate F1-related stuff?

Shouldn't Windsor be there in those meeting or are they split already?





* USF1 manufacturing partner, Gunther Steiner’s Fibreworks Composites? WTF is that guy doing there?

Sounds like, if this is a 'coup', Steiner is Hurley's USF1 trusted insider, doesn't it? He would have been the one being in a position to tell Hurley what was really happening in opposition to Windsor and Anderson's BS?

is he CompositeKen? who knows haha? it takes someone pretty well connected on all sides to know how much money is owed to Cosworth and such things..

Hurley's "mate / fixer / whatever," Parris Mullins, isn't a Ferrari dealer. He's a saleman who works for a Ferrari dealer in Silicon Valley.

We may have identified the second driver, though. "Sales representative Parris Mullins is also a Formula race car driver who dreams of racing a Ferrari one day."

All we're missing now are the bears and elephants. We seem to have the clowns for this circus.

Cynic

Who cares who that guy is? Seems to me he's speaking in Chad Hurley's name.

Hurley is no clown, maybe not well-versed in the racing biz but far from a clown.. seems to me that for him the plan is to take his distances from clowns ATM..

Gunther Steiner would be the guy who knows racing/F1, and would be the guy privy to several sides of the story it seems..

The Argentine government isn't exactly known for making good investments. Anyways, even if they did put pressure there is little that they can do about it now with Bahrain being so close. There was a lot of political movement behind Lopez so it wasn't exactly being looked at from solely an economic cost-benefit point of view.

Gunther Steiner would probably be a very good man to have at the team

I think anyone enthusiastic about either of those two blokes says more about them that anything else. Unless Hurley buys those Toyotas there won't be a Campos, USF1 or whatever merged outfit comes of it on the grid in Bahrain. According to Dallara internal communciation they are about a month out. The Type 1 is at least that far out. Rencken wrote "companies are measured not by the size of the crisis but by their management thereof". Both had some good ideas and good intentions but weren't able to pull it off. If Hurley is able to put something together at this stage it would be the mother of all Hail Marys. Win one for the Gipper. If they can't get something together by weeks end or at least enough funding to pay the staff, they need to lay them off so they can start collecting benefits.

What does that mean? he supposedly already is at the team. (hence my CompositeKen attempt at a scenario above in post 4293 lol)

http://www.usgpe.com/partners.html

http://www.fibreworkscomposites.com/

..or you mean the new team Hurley is trying to set up?

Where in those links does it state that Gunther Steiner has some kind of role at USF1? He is not listed as having any position at the team.

Unless you consider a supplier as being a member of a F1 team

And, Gunther Steiner being CK CK claimed to be EMPLOYED by USF1, not a supplier. And Steiner using Autosport forums to vent his frustrations like a 16 year old